


your heart is a paradise for this wild weary soul

by highwayfawn (orphan_account)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:44:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/highwayfawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth's side is brushing yours and spreading warmth up your arm, towards your chest, and you don't know when this became your idea of heaven but it is: sitting beside the one person you've got left in a dirty, unlit room, sharing a handful of scavenged fruit and enjoying the mutual silence, nothing but the sound of crickets and your own breathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your heart is a paradise for this wild weary soul

The door creaks open and you see the split second of anxiety on her face, the fear that it's not you at the doorway but some stranger, some member of the undead army that marches on outside, and you imagine the flutter of her heartbeat as she sits in the dark, waiting.

"Daryl?" she whispers, like a ghost. You can hardly see her pale face, her wide eyes in the darkness of the corner she's pressed herself into.

"Yeah," you say, nodding to her as you walk the distance between the door and the bed, stepping over dirty clothes and empty cans and piles of magazines carefully. "I got somethin' for you."

You sit down on the bed, scoot up next to where she's curled in on herself, pressed tight against the wall and the headboard, and hold out your hand to show her your prize.

She leans forward when you open your hand, eyes squinted against the engulfing darkness of the room as she peers down to see.

"Persimmons?"

"Mhm," you hum, looking up to see her watching you with a soft smile gracing her thin face, and it makes your cheeks burn so fast you have to drop your gaze again, staring at the pile of little orange fruits in your hand. She takes one, looking it over briefly before looking to you like she's waiting for something, a confirmation, an okay.

"Eat it," you say, nodding to her. She smiles.

You watch as she pops the stem off with nimble fingers, pops the fruit in her mouth, spits the pits into her palm a second later and drops them on the empty plate sitting on the bedside table that you've been using as an ashtray.

She eats two more before she stops, looking to you with an almost worried expression before she smiles at you.

"Aren't you going to eat any?" she asks, face open and painfully kind. You shrug, an effortless roll of your aching shoulders, and truthfully you do want to eat one, haven't tasted anything but squirrel and bird and snake in weeks, and fresh fruit sounds like the closest thing to heaven that's left on earth, but you're not going to. You're not going to because Beth deserves _something_ , something good and sweet and she's the entire reason you went out looking for them in the first place anyway.

"They're good," she says. "When I was little me and-" You can hear her throat threatening to close for a moment, the danger of tears hanging close before she continues, "Daddy would take me and Maggie out in the woods and we'd find them. Bring home whole baskets full of 'em. I remember once, Maggie told me to eat a green one, must've only been about six, so I did." She stops to laugh, a soft noise that makes your chest clench. "I don't think I talked to her for a whole week, after that," she says with a nostalgic smile, looking at her hands for a long moment as she grows quiet before she looks up at you, eyes wide and earnest. "They're good. Thank you, Daryl."

You ignore the ache in your chest. Look down at your hands.

"You really should have a few," she urges though, pressing on, and those eyes won't leave you alone. So you pick one up and look it over, feeling the soft fruit between your fingers as you pop the little cap off and bring it to your mouth.

It's ripe, perfectly sweet and soft, and makes you think of long days out hunting with Merle, longs days of being on your own and foraging for your dinner. You chew around the seeds carefully, spitting them onto the dusty floor. It's the sweetest thing you've tasted in a long time and you think for a minute that you're right, and it's the closest thing to heaven you're ever going to get. 

And then you think, _no_ , that's not right, because the syrupy taste of persimmon hardly registers when you look up and see that soft smile she's giving you as she reaches over, thin fingers brushing the calloused skin of your palm as she takes another fruit, eyes never leaving yours for a second. 

Beth's side is brushing yours and spreading warmth up your arm, towards your chest, and you don't know when this became your idea of heaven but it is: sitting beside the one person you've got left in a dirty, unlit room, sharing a handful of scavenged fruit and enjoying the mutual silence, nothing but the sound of crickets and your own breathing. Things feel calmer than they have for a while, maybe calmer than it's felt since before the showdown at the prison, and it's good. Beth is here, a tangible proof that you're alive and not alone, and that means that things are good.

When your bellies are full and there's a heap of caps and seeds on the plate on the bedside stand, she turns over and yanks the blanket up over her shoulders. You sit there beside her, listening to her breath as it slowly evens and calms, watching her shoulders rise and fall steadily, and for the first time in a while, you feel like things are going to be okay.

 


End file.
